there's a tradeoff, that -40 counts for a lot, your fed or kdf ship has 40 more power to allocate, so cranking weapons high doesn't drain the other sub systems as much as it does a romulan ship. shields get bonuses to strength and resists at higher power levels, that counts for bleed through too.

to equal the output power of a fed or kdf for weapons, you're draining engines, which is bonus defense, shields which is resists, or aux which is heals. and no matter what you do, you're still going to be short somewhere compared to the other factions ships. even heals that give bonus resist are affected by aux power :\

everything is about power. the counter balance and one saving grace is the boffs with operative trait. and decloak +def you can actually run weap power a bit lower and rely on crits if you spec into the skill to get some extra bonuses. not perfect, but gives you a bit more leeway in adjusting power levels.

That i believe is the reason the devs don't want to change the boff traits.

Anyhoos, i know a plasmonic leach will help alleviate the power shortage, it can't be allocated all to a particular subsystem, so you're still at a disadvantage in the power department